Schedule 3 accordingly agreed to.

Clause 23 - Minor and consequential I

Victoria Prentis: This clause introduces schedule 4, which sets out the consequential I arising from the new access and licensing provisions introduced in the Bill.

Schedule 4 - Access and licensing: minor and consequential I

Victoria Prentis: These are technical I. Schedule 4 repeals the current regime that would manage access of foreign fishing boats to British waters through the use of designation orders. These I ensure that that regime  and the designation orders are also repealed in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man—with their agreement, of course. I commend the I to the Committee.

Victoria Prentis: I beg to move amendment 29,in schedule 4, page63,line14, at end insert—
“‘temporary foreign vessel licence’ means a licence that—
(a) is granted in respect of a foreign fishing boat, and
(b) has effect for a period of no more than three weeks;”.
This amendment is one of a group of I that introduces an expedited process for granting temporary licences to foreign fishing boats by communicating them electronically to the European Commission (or, in the case of a non-EU fishing boat, the relevant regulatory authority) and publishing them on the web.

Charles Walker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government I 30 to 47.

Victoria Prentis: This group of I enables the four UK fishing administrations to issue licences to foreign vessels in a shortened timespan, if it should prove necessary to do so.
The preferred system of licensing is that, should access be granted, the UK and the EU, Norwegian or Faroese licensing authorities would exchange lists of vessels wishing to fish in each other’s waters. Following relevant checks, the lists would be validated and the UK would issue licences to individual vessels. That process would be undertaken by the Marine Management Organisation, acting as our single issuing authority.
That will necessarily take some time and there is a risk that the delivery of fishing licences to vessel owners will be delayed. The impact would be that vessels from the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands would not be able to fish in our waters at the start of any fishing agreement.
I stress that this is very much a contingency solution to provide maximum flexibility for the UK licensing authorities. The aim would be to have full licences ready to issue for all individual vessels at the start of the fishing year, if a negotiated outcome on access has been reached. As a contingency, accepting that that will not always be possible, we have devised the new mechanism. It in no way undermines the principle that any foreign vessels that we allow to fish in our waters must be licensed and must follow the same rules as our vessels.  The only difference between the systems is about who is informed about the granting of a licence and the time in which it can be processed.

Luke Pollard: The I pick up on one theme I have raised with the Minister around the difference between a hard copy and an electronic licence. That relates to the experience of British fishers in particular and the MMO’s licensing arrangements. As we discussed earlier, arrangements have changed in relation to the covid procedures, particularly in relation to the carrying of a hard copy versus an electronic copy. My reading of the amendment is that it provides a different service and puts a different requirement on foreign fishers than on UK fishing boats.
Current UK fishing licence conditions, including conditions 6.1a and 6.1b, require UK fishing boats to carry a hard copy of their licence on board, or to be able to produce it at a time and place requested by the regulator or their agent, which in most cases in England is the Royal Navy, within five days. This amendment seeks to make an electronic version a permanent solution for foreign boats, but not for UK boats.
I understand that we have seen changes with the covid situation. I hope the Minister has effectively announced that the licence will now be electronic for all UK boats. She may need to bring forward a statutory instrument to adjust the regulations after the covid regulations are removed. My understanding of the covid regulations is that they will all go and we will revert back to the pre-covid regulations, which would require a new statutory instrument to be brought forward. That would be a welcome move because it would put UK fishers on a level playing field with foreign fishers.
With this amendment, foreign fishers get a better service than UK fishers, outside the current covid regulations. I am concerned about that, so I shall be grateful if the Minister will set out how that would work, particularly regarding enforcement and the difficulties of obtaining signal while at sea, in order to demonstrate to an enforcement vessel during a stop that a vessel has an electronic licence if it does not have a hard copy.
We know there have been difficulties in the past with foreign boats fishing in our waters without a licence and not being checked. The Minister will probably be aware of the case of the Dutch-registered Friesian that was scalloping and landing in and out of UK ports without a licence, before it was finally checked by the French, who took it to task. That was a number of years ago and it is extraordinary that steps have not been taken to address that level of enforcement since then. There is a point to make about both UK and foreign fishing boats being regulated in a similar way.
I realise that the approach that the Minister has taken in the past is to say that other nations regulate their own boats. However, when fishing in our waters, using permissions granted by the UK Government or UK fisheries authorities, there should be a similar approach, whether the boat is British-based or foreign-based.

Stephanie Peacock: I beg to move amendment 119, in clause26,page17,leave out line 38.
This amendment would remove historical catch levels as a basis for distributing catch quotas and effort quotas.
Amendment 119 removes historical catch as a basis for allocating quotas. National authorities would no longer consider historical catch levels when distributing catch and effort quotas to fishing boats. Instead, they would prioritise environmental and local economic criteria. Removing historical catch levels as a criterion would help to end the unfair arrangement that British fishers suffered under the common fisheries policy.
This new system under which quotas are distributed on the basis of environmental and local economic criteria is likely to benefit small-scale sustainable fishers who belong to the UK small fishing fleet, because smaller boats provide more job opportunities to local communities. For every fish caught, small-scale fleets create far more jobs than their larger counterparts. In 2016, they landed 11% of fish by value in the UK but employed nearly half of all fishers. They are also better for the environment.
We have already discussed the impact of destructive fishing methods, including pulse beam trawling, which cause huge damage to the UK marine environments and ecosystems. In contrast to supertrawlers and larger boats, the vast majority of boats within the small-scale fleet use passive gears, which are more environmentally friendly. By removing historical catch from the list of criteria that a national authority must consider when allocating fishing opportunities, we would send a message to smaller boats that we believe in their economic potential and recognise the positive impact of job opportunities in coastal communities and the marine environments in which such boats operate.
I am aware that some colleagues will be concerned about the legality of removing historical catch as a basis for allocating quotas, but I reassure them that a challenge to a new system of quota allocation enshrined in an Act of Parliament would be unlikely to succeed. I have been assured that the new scenario of mandating quota re-allocation in UK law would be compatible with domestic and international law.
Under this new approach, foreign-owned companies that control UK quota would have to work to keep it on the UK’s terms. They would have to fulfil the environmental and local economic criteria, demonstrating their commitment to sustainability and local employment. Our smaller fishing fleets remain the backbone of coastal communities across the country. It is time that they got their fair share of fishing opportunities.

Stephanie Peacock: I beg to move amendment 120, in clause26,page17,line44,at end insert—
“(3A) When distributing English fishing opportunities, the Secretary of State may redistribute any fishing opportunities made available before IP completion day, and any such distribution and redistribution must be carried out according to social, environmental and local economic criteria following national and regional consultation from relevant stakeholder advisory groups, including representative groups from across the fishing fleet, scientists, and environmental groups.”
This amendment would allow the redistribution of existing fishing opportunities in England and would mean that such distribution and redistribution had to be carried out in accordance with certain criteria, following consultation.
Amendment 120 would allow the redistribution of existing English fishing opportunities. I stress that Labour’s amendments to clause 26 would not leave our largest fishing boats and those that are bigger than 10 metres in a position where they could no longer operate—far from it. We are calling for a redistribution of a small proportion of opportunities to the under-10 metre fishing fleet. Even a single-digit percentage redistribution of quotas would make a monumental difference to the lives of small fishers, who have been hit particularly hard by the covid-19 pandemic. If just 1% or 2% of the total catch was re-allocated, that could increase by 25% what small boats can catch.
As I outlined earlier, for every fish caught, a small-scale fleet creates more jobs than their larger counterparts do. Despite landing only a tenth of the fish by value, they employ nearly half of all fishers. Of course, as we discussed, they create far more jobs on land that at sea. These small fishers are the backbone of the British fishing fleet. The future prosperity of our coastal communities is fundamentally dependent on these small-scale fishers. A small redistribution of the quota, which is clearly within the Government’s gift, would not cause significant damage to large-scale fishers, but it would fundamentally transform the prospects of our small fishers and their coastal communities. It would give them a platform to invest in new gear and boats and to hire more crew.
Labour is not calling for the redistribution of the quota to happen immediately. A phrased drawdown period would ensure that fishers could build up their capacity to meet the new quota allowances. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport said on Second Reading:
“Such rebalancing could easily be absorbed by the big foreign-owned boat operators within the current range of variation of total allowable catch”.—[Official Report, 1 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 73.]
The amendment calls on the Secretary of State to consider the social, environmental and local economic criteria when distributing or redistributing existing English fishing opportunities, as well as to consult stakeholder advisory groups. As I mentioned in the debate on amendment 119, Labour believes that considering environmental and local economic criteria would benefit  our small fishing fleet and, consequently, the seaside towns and villages they rely on. Amendment 120 asks the Government to grasp this opportunity to support our small English fishers and their communities.